


Lost and found

by Trojie



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:19:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ororo Munroe gets recruited to Xavier's school and Alex Summers is just a kid, who's not too young to fight a war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and found

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fic that my other X-Men: First Class fics were intended to be sequels to, finally posted, nearly two years and a lot of heavy revisions later. It fills my 2013 hurt-comfort bingo prompt "lost childhood".

The Professor has a plan. He wants them to help people.

And in Alex Summers' opinion, it is a crazy plan. Because how can they help people when all they're gonna do is scare them? Fuck's sake, they all scare _themselves_ still some days, when Alex can't hold himself back, when Hank lets rip, when Sean screams. The Professor schools them in control, and why they should bother to keep it, why they shouldn't run away and join the resistance. Why they should care about the people who aren't like them, the people who laughed at them or shouted at them or locked them up. But that doesn't mean they don't sometimes have moments where they lose it still.

'There are more mutants out there than just the four of us, as you are well aware,' says the Professor. 'There are more mutants out there than anyone knows. We are a minority, but not a rarity. We have to lay down the foundations of a shared society, and this school will be a cornerstone of that.'

_Yeah, and you don't want Magneto getting to everyone before you can,_ Alex thinks without saying, until he realises that he doesn't need to say it out loud if he thinks it _at_ the Professor. 

'Out loud, if you please, Alex,' says the Professor, raising an eyebrow. 'But you do make a good point. It is in our interests as advocates of coexistence to spread our message further and faster than the Brotherhood can spread their message of separatism and supremacy.'

Most days, Alex gets it. Some days he doesn't, just like most days he can hit targets and some days he's all over the place, wreaking havoc. 

'It's going to be hard to do that and stay secret,' says Hank, sitting up very straight in his seat. 'Magneto and the others don't care if they make a spectacle, but we can't afford to scare humans. If we do, we'll end up with two sets of enemies.'

'This is, of course, an issue,' the Professor acknowledges. 

'We're doomed,' says Sean with a smile like he wants to be making a joke but knows he's kind of telling the truth at the same time.

The corners of the Professor's mouth lift briefly. 'It is a difficult situation.'

Spread the word. Get the humans to accept them. Find new mutant kids to teach. They have goals. It's just they're kind of hard goals to achieve if you're hiding all the time. They need a reason not to hide. They need to help people. Good publicity stunt, yeah?

Except, as Alex keeps saying, keeps thinking, it _isn't gonna work_. An ex-con, a loudmouth redhead and a big blue hairy thing aren't exactly gonna win People's Choice for a superhero team. No-one's gonna want the circus to show up when they're in trouble.

It's a difficult situation.

***

They don't really have much of a plan, but they start outfitting themselves anyway. Probably just because Hank can't sit still without making shit - ideas fall off that boy like dandruff. And man, with all that fur, you'd think that'd be a problem. 

(It isn't. Sean and Alex helped Hank with the whole 'washing' issue for a while, until he figured out a method. Now they just use it as an excuse to mess about in the bathroom with him.)

As well as the suits and the gadgets to work with their power, and all kinds of ways to avoid having to put any metal in anything, Hank starts making noises about … bigger … bits of equipment. He has all kinds of arguments about why they need them, too, which is how they end up with a new X-jet. 

Well, it's actually an _old_ X-jet - the first working prototype the CIA had built from Hank's designs. The Professor sort of … hijacked it with his brain - it was going to be scrapped, and the Professor got it 'dumped' at the Academy instead. His step-father must have been a nutcase, or a gopher or something - they have their own underground _hangar_. It's fucking insane, just how much underground there is to the mansion. Admittedly they have to clear out about three centuries worth of canned food hoarded because of the impending nuclear apocalypse, but still. It's a hangar if they say it is.

The day the jet gets 'delivered', Hank takes Alex and Sean down to look at it. He's pretty excited, even if he's pretending he's not. The X-jet is his baby, and when they have it back in working order, then … then they can get to work, properly. That's what Alex keeps thinking. When they have the gear ready to go, then they'll be the team, like the Professor and Erik were - out to find new mutants and fight the good fight. 

Alex isn't obsessing over that, exactly, it's just that it's an important thing to think about. You can't just ignore things like that. But anyway, today it's time to look at what they've got and what they can do with it, not what the future is gonna be. 

The new X-jet is scratched up and showing gunmetal grey underneath its matte-black paint, and it's a bit smaller than the old one, Alex reckons. He stands back to get the full effect - Sean just dives straight in. 'No bomb-bay doors?' he asks, poking his head into the fuselage.

'No bombs, no bomb-bay, no bomb-bay doors,' says Hank owlishly, pushing his glasses back up his nose. 'It's alright, it has ordinary doors,' he points out. 'You're kind of in one.'

'You want me to jump out the _door_?' Sean says, turning and standing in the doorway. Alex rolls his eyes. 

'Dude, that's what people _normally_ do,' he says, shoving up behind Hank so that Hank will nudge Sean and they can all actually go into this goddamn plane. 'Even I know that.'

Inside, the X-jet is still kinda smaller than the last one, looks less finished somehow. Most of the layout's the same, though, including the cockpit. Hank runs a fluffy hand over the rudder like he's missed it, or something, and then says, 'So, Alex, you'll be my copilot -'

'What?' Alex says, interrupting. 'I'll be your what?'

'Copilot,' says Hank again, stringing the sound out like he thinks Alex just didn't hear him properly. 'I can't fly this thing by myself - there are instruments I can't keep an eye on from the pilot's seat, and -'

'But I don't know how,' Alex points out. 'And what if something happens? This thing doesn't have weapons, you're going to need me -'

'It doesn't have weapons because we're supposed to be on a _mission of peace_ ,' Hank says patiently. 'And you can't fly, and the jet's not manoeuvrable enough to let you snipe out of the doors. It's got to be you, Alex, because _if_ we get into a fight in the air, we're going to need Sean out there.'

Alex has wished he didn't have his mutation plenty of times. He was never jealous of someone else's before. 'Fine,' he says, cos if he keeps fighting this it's gonna be a thing. A thing he'll lose. 

'I'll teach you what you need to know,' Hank says a little bit gently. 

Alex shrugs it off. 'Alright, what do we need to do to get this bucket of rust off the ground, anyway?' he asks, changing the subject, crossing his arms over his chest. He can see Hank bridle and Sean grin at his choice of words, and that's just fine. Back to normal, yeah.

'Fit some goddamn bomb-bay doors,' says Sean. 

'We're not having bomb-bay doors,' Hank sighs. 'Jeez, are you five?'

Sean's jaw tightens a bit. 'Dropping down's gotta be easier than jumping out, right?' he asks. 

Okay, so maybe Alex isn't the only one thrown off today. 'Right, so, copilot training for me, and Sean needs to get his jump wings. Anything else, Hank?'

'I could use a bigger chair,' says Hank, wrestling a bit with the one that's already installed. 'And I need to make new flight suits - Cuba ruined yours.' 

'Also I think we need some paint,' Sean muses, peering up and around the fuselage.

'As long as it's not blue and yellow,' Alex adds, and gets a tiny kick out of Hank rolling his eyes. 

Hank starts to shoo them out. 'Not blue and yellow, Alex, I swear. C'mon, get out. I've got work to do.'

'You don't want help?' Sean asks, but they kind of know the answer. Hank likes to be left alone to work. Also neither Alex nor Sean is one hundred percent great at following instructions. 

'No, I don't,' says Hank. 'But thanks.' He smiles, the same awkward nerd smile he's always had, just behind a bunch of blue fluff. Alex isn't big on … y'know, casual touching … but he kind of wants to hug Hank sometimes. He settles for a punch in the shoulder instead. 

'Have fun,' he says, and starts heading out, thinking maybe he'll get into the practice-range and set some shit on fire in the name of target practice. Sean follows him, and behind them Hank starts to get down to business with the jet - there are a couple of clattering noises and then a thump that sounds like Hank has started by getting rid of the pilot's chair.

'Lemme guess, you're gonna go break something,' says Sean as they leave, shoving his hands in his pockets.

'And you're gonna go flying,' Alex counters. They end up kind of in step, because Sean's taller but he slouches, and Alex learnt to be big-bad-fuck-right-off-buddy a long time ago and the stride hasn't worn off yet.

_Actually, I need to see both of you in my study,_ says the Professor in their heads. _And Hank, when he's free_. 

Sean looks at Alex, and shrugs. They change direction.

***

'I've identified a potential new recruit,' says the Professor. 'However, as I'm sure you can appreciate, going to meet with her myself is no longer the most viable option for me.' He's wheeled himself around his desk to where Alex and Sean are sitting, and Alex gets the weird idea that it's because he doesn't want them to feel like they're in the principal's office. 

'You want us to go,' Sean says. 

'You want _us_ to go?' Alex echoes. 

The Professor smiles at him. He looks tired. 'Yes, Alex, I want you to go. The three of you.'

Sean leans forward and asks, 'Where is she?'

'Kenya,' says the Professor. 

'I guess that's why we need the jet, huh,' says Sean.

They talk like they're both on the same page, and Sean looks excited and the Professor starts to lose his tired expression and smiles properly, answering all of Sean's questions like where will they land the jet, and does he know if Magneto's after this girl, and shit like that. Practical shit. Alex is kind of just trying to take it in. 

'What's her name?' he asks after a few minutes, realising he can't just not say anything. It's the first thing that occurs to him to ask. 

'Ororo Munroe,' says the Professor. 'She's fifteen.'

'And her parents aren't gonna mind us turning up in a big fuck-off plane and asking to take their daughter off to school?'

'That is unlikely to be an issue.' The Professor coughs. 'She's been on the streets for several years.'

Oh, good. Because what this house needs is one more person who's been abandoned.

'Then she'll be hard to find,' says Hank, looming in the doorway. 'I know you located her with Cerebro, Professor, but that was months ago, and at the moment we don't have a way to replicate the results.' He grimaces, because he loved Cerebro like he loves all his inventions, and Riptide destroyed it. 'So at best what we've got is an approximate location.'

'Unfortunately, that's correct,' the Professor agrees. 'You'll just have to use your initiative, boys.'

'Why can't we just leave her where she is?' Alex asks. 'If she's going to be that hard to find, Magneto's going to be just as screwed as we are.' 

The Professor turns to look at him, and Alex suddenly feels like an idiot as he says, 'This isn't a game of capture the flag, Alex. You of all people should know that mutants aren't weapons to be collected. We're talking about a fifteen year old girl; alone, with greater power than she knows how to handle and no-one to help her learn to master it. You three need to find her, for everyone's sake.'

He holds Alex's gaze for a moment, but he doesn't need to. Fuck, Alex gets it. 'When do we leave?' he asks, because what else is he gonna say? Him, of all people?

It's like everyone in the room lets out a breath they've been holding. 'As soon as Hank can have the X-jet airworthy again,' says the Professor. _You're not an idiot, Alex,_ he says privately. _You just sometimes forget that life isn't solitary, I think_.

The meeting breaks up after that. Alex goes to the bunker. Maybe life isn't solitary, but sometimes Alex still needs to be on his own. And he has this feeling that once the Professor gets the ball rolling on this 'school' thing, he won't get the opportunity much.

***

It looks like Ororo Monroe will fit in just right at the mansion, at least if she doesn't kill them all first. She's a head shorter than Banshee, and her skin is a warm brown, and her hair is dead, ice-white, and her eyes are like pearls. Also she's controlling a thunderstorm in the middle of what should be a desert. She doesn't look real pleased to see them.

'Uh, Miss Monroe?' Beast says cautiously. His fur is getting soaked - he looks like a wet cat. Havok would laugh except he's trying to work out what this amount of water will do to his plasma rings if he has to let loose. Sounds stupid, but refraction is a thing he has to worry about. Hello, physics lessons.

'Are you with them? The Brotherhood?' Ororo asks, and raises a hand threateningly like she's going to throw a spear when Banshee edges a bit closer. 'I won't hunt people, mutant or not. I told the other man that, the one who could play with the winds a little bit.' She smiles in a way that makes Havok kind of uncomfortable with how she says 'a little bit'. He wonders what she did to Riptide, how she got him to back off. Because Riptide's strong but Havok gets the distinct feeling that against this girl he'd be like a breeze against a hurricane.

'No,' says Beast, trying to push closer through the wall of water she's controlling. 'We're trying to stop them from doing that.'

She lowers her arms slowly, eyeing the three boys warily, and asks, 'Are you like me?' She says it to Havok and then her eyes flick to Banshee as well. 'You two, I mean. I can see he is,' shrugging at Beast.

'Yeah,' says Banshee. 'We are.'

Havok just nods. 

'Show me.' She's curious, not bossy. The winds are dropping from gale force and the rain's just drizzle now, too. It hits Havok that she could have killed them and she hasn't, she's just a kid, dumb enough to ask them what she just asked them even though she can't know they're not her enemies yet, but she has so much _control._ Havok's jealous.

So much freaking control she can choose how high she cranks up her power. If she weren't a kid maybe she would have killed them anyway. By choice. 

'Come on,' she says, impatiently.

'It isn't safe,' Beast breaks in, but it's too late - Banshee's taking off, and it's not just flying - he starts off riding his voice, but soon he's swooping and diving along the currents of air that Ororo's creating. Her eyes follow him, and then her head tilts to watch him as he soars higher, and by the time Havok notices that she's smiling, the sky has totally cleared of all the rain and clouds. She keeps the winds moving for Banshee to use, though. 

Beast is shaking himself dry, which is hilarious but which he's probably still sensitive about so Havok tries not to laugh. Tries. Beast glares a bit at him but says, 'We're from a school - Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Professor Xavier teaches mutants like us - how to use our powers, ordinary school stuff too. How to get along with non-mutants, and how to help them, too.'

She turns her face to him, and as Havok watches her eyes clear from misty white to a dark brown. Banshee lands beside him and nudges him with his elbow.

'I think we have a winner,' he whispers.

Ororo says, 'I'll go with you. I want to help people.' She chooses so quick, puts her weapons away so quick, is almost a kid again so quick. Still wary, but brave, confident, like she's run away from shit before and she'll bust out of this and run away again if she has to, if this goes bad, so she thinks she might as well give it a shot. Yeah, well, Havok has seen that attitude before. Seen it wearing orange, yelling and kicking, cocky little shits bouncing off walls and mouthing off at guards. Seen it in other people, seen it in the mirror. Remembers what it was like, eventually realising there are some things you can't bust out of.

Ororo meets his eye as they board the X-jet. Takes one to know one. 

They have clear, calm skies for their flight back to Westchester, the whole way.

***

'How far do we let our abilities dictate our actions?' the Professor asks to open their next class, and Alex stares at him.

'You mean, just because we can do things, that doesn't mean we should do them?' Hank tries to clarify, and the Professor smiles but shakes his head.

'Not just that, Hank. Perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully - how much _control_ should our abilities have over our choices? Because sometimes, I think, some of us may have refused to act out of fear of ourselves.' 

There are four students in this room. Why the hell does Alex always feel like he's the one being asked the questions?

'Sometimes, you don't want people to know what you can do,' says Ororo, tentatively. 'So you hide, instead of doing things. Is that what you mean?'

'Or you know it'll end badly for someone,' says Hank, 'So you hold back.'

'Sometimes you just think, fuck this, and do it anyway, though, right?' Sean volunteers, and Alex is fairly certain he gets a private reprimand for his language, but the Professor nods at his words anyway. 

'That's certainly part of it. There are those who would say, if you have the power, you should use it. That you must use it, or that you _deserve_ to use it, and the consequences are only part of the natural order of things.'

'The Brotherhood,' mutters Ororo. She looks up from her notebook with a fiery look in her eyes. 'They told me I could be like a god, and strike people with lightning, and flood them out of their homes because they weren't like us. They told me that's what my purpose in life was meant to be. It's sickening.'

'So you don't agree, then,' says the Professor. 'No. And the rest of you, do you agree with Ororo's choice not to use her power? Alex? You haven't said anything yet.'

'Before you brought us here,' Alex says, and he can't help the crackle in his throat, 'the only times I _chose_ to use my power ended kind of badly.'

Sean's hand is casually draped over the back of Alex's chair, the tips of his fingers touching the nape of Alex's neck, and that little bit of touch is grounding. Hank stretches in his seat and his knee brushes Alex's.

'It's about what you care about,' Alex says, swallowing the bile and the urge to fight and run. 'What you choose, I mean. It's not about your power at all. If I _wanted_ to hurt people, I wouldn't need my mutation to do it.'

'And what if you want to help people?' the Professor asks. 'Or what if you don't want to, but you have the ability? What do you do then?'

***

'So what's your talent?' Ororo asks Alex after class. She blinks at him and smiles, right in his face - they're roughly the same height, he realises. She's wearing a cotton sundress that's really bright against her skin and hair both, and he abruptly wants to scare her away from here. The Professor's right. She's young. She hasn't seen her friends change sides on her. She didn't go through Cuba, and if she runs like hell now, she might not have to go through whatever the next Cuba ends up being. 

But if she isn't here, where else will she go? So Alex swallows the urge to tell her to run away. 

'Dangerous,' he says, shortly.

'So's mine,' she says, raising an eyebrow at him. 'If I want it to be.'

'Yeah, well, at least you get to decide,' says Alex. But the way she stands in front of him says she's not gonna let this one drop, so he sighs. She'll have to find out sooner or later, right? 'I'll show you, if you want?'

She trails him down to the bunker, which turns into an accidental tour of the mansion and a quick sandwich and a drink in the kitchen. 

'I like it here,' says Ororo, sipping at her juice.

'It must be pretty different to what you're used to,' 

She raises an eyebrow. 'You, too. The Professor told me about how this place got started.'

'Well,' says Alex. 'Food's better than where I used to be, for a start.'

It should make him mad, that the Professor's been telling tales. But on the other hand, everyone else here knows. If things with this school go the way Alex suspects they will, and they turn into a training camp for the Anti-Magneto Front or whatever, then Ororo will end up on the front lines with him and the other two, and then she'd need to know everything, just like they'll need to know everything about her.

'And the company,' he adds. 

'I like it here,' says Ororo again, looking up at the high kitchen ceiling and then back down at him, and smiling. 'It's nice. Safe.' 

Alex doesn't know what to say to that, whether to agree with her or to laugh sourly, but she downs the last of her sandwich and gets up. 'Come on, are you going to show me what you can do?' she asks.

'Sure,' says Alex. He gets up and rolls his shoulders. 'But not in here - there's a practice range downstairs.'

He's got enough control now, at least in the bunker and after some slow, careful breathing and thinking, that Ororo doesn't have to leave - he buckles on the new amplifier/reflector/absorber that Hank made to go over ordinary clothes, for practice times, and she promises with wide eyes to stay behind him, and he lets rip.

When he stops, when there's one fire all neat and tear-drop-shaped in the centre of the bunker floor in front of them, she looks at him, and something's blazing in her face. He expected fear. But he gets respect. And maybe, and this is what makes his stomach knot, hope.

In his whole life, Alex Summers has never seen anyone look at him with hope before. 

'We're going to _win_ ,' says Ororo fiercely. She knocks shoulders with him. turning back to look at the fire, which is starting to go out already without fuel. 'We're going to be unstoppable.'

Alex wants to tell her he's more than a goddamn weapon, but he can't get the words out. And does it matter, anyway?

***

'Sorry, Alex, but you've totally been replaced as copilot,' Sean says, smirking. 'Look at her go.'

Alex shades his eyes and stares up into the sky, where Ororo, or Storm (the codename thing has stopped being something they did because they were kids who were overexcited about working for the CIA, and become something the Professor insists is vital for their safety) is demonstrating her piloting skills. 'I just can't believe Hank gave her the keys, is all,' he says. 

'She took to it like a duck to water,' says Hank, also looking up. 'Total natural. And with her powers, she can fly a lot more efficiently than I can.'

'She's a keeper, alright,' says Sean. 'When do we give her her X-Man card?'

'We don't,' says the Professor. 'I know she isn't that much younger than the three of you, but she _is_ younger, and young enough that she should still be in school. Unless it's an emergency, Ororo's a student, not an X-Man. I'm sorry, Alex, but you're still the copilot for a while.'

Sean, Hank and Alex trade looks. Alex isn't thrilled, let's put it that way. Storm's better at flying, better at being in the sky than Alex. It's just sensible, isn't it, to let her do this job? Hell, she wants to do it. She wants to fight with them, why not let her? She's the same age, pretty much, that he was when Cuba happened. No-one said he was too young to go out on that beach, too young to fight. 

No-one said he was too young to go to jail, either. 

The Professor looks at Alex sharply at that, but he sighs when their eyes meet. _We don't build a better future by repeating the injustices of the past,_ he says. _We have to aim higher, Alex. We have to do more for others than was done for us._

Alex looks away. 

***

That night, after Ororo's landed and been congratulated, and they've had dinner, Alex retreats to his room. 

It takes fifteen minutes for Sean to come after him, and they sit on Alex's bed, backs to the wall, with their elbows touching and don't say anything. It's Alex's favourite thing about Sean, that he talks big and he talks a lot, but when it's important he knows when to shut up. Eventually Alex ends up in Sean's lap, with Sean's hands up the back of his t-shirt, and okay, perhaps the kissing is Alex's favourite thing about Sean, because Sean kisses like Alex is delicious. 

Hank attempts to sneak through the door at some point after Sean's got Alex's shirt off. Alex comes up for air and peers around over his shoulder. 

'Subtle,' he says. 

Hank huffs. 'You try being subtle when you look like the Cowardly Lion got into a blueberry patch,' he says, and Alex has to smile.

'Get up here, Fluffy,' says Sean, patting the mattress and pulling Alex in closer. 'I need backup.'

Between the two of them Alex ought to feel claustrophobic, but he doesn't. He never does. He always feels like he can breathe when it's just him and Hank and Sean in a room, like he can relax. He ends up with his hand twined in Hank's fur, the other arm hooked around Sean's neck, moving from kiss to kiss like he doesn't need air. 

'It's okay, we gotcha,' Hank murmurs. He pretty much picks Alex up by the scruff of his neck and one big hand wrapped around his hip, and turns him around until he's in Sean's lap. Sean buries his face in Alex's hairline. He squirms, he's so hard against Alex's ass and back, and Alex can feel him biting his own lip against Alex's skin, trying so hard to be quiet the same way Alex has to be calm and Hank has to be controlled.

Alex reaches back and cards his fingers through Sean's sex-wild hair, lets him press his mouth hard against the knobs of Alex's spine, and arches against him and Hank when their hands graze his dick. Together they start to jerk him off, one hand each on his dick and Hank's other hand grabbing Sean to kiss him, and Alex squirms and pushes back until Sean's dick is riding the crack of his ass all wet and hot and so close to fucking him without actually doing it that it makes Alex dizzy. 

Hank's freaking huge - Alex gets both hands around him and he's kind of going crazy wanting to get his mouth on him as well. He's learning to love having them both around him, in him, even if just thinking about it outside the bedroom makes him kind of squirmy and embarrassed. 

It doesn't take long before Alex is slumped over, scrabbling to get his hands and knees underneath him and he's got Hank in his mouth and Sean's rubbing off against his ass and they're sweaty and uncoordinated but this centres Alex somehow. They give him what he needs and they don't ask for anything he can't do. 

He comes after they do, three dominoes in a row, wet heat dripping down Alex's skin, eyelashes, the backs of his thighs, and like always Hank manhandles him into Sean's lap and goes off to get a washcloth. 

'So spill,' says Sean after Alex's breathing's calmed down.

Alex freezes. 

'Aww, c'mon,' Sean wheedles, nosing at Alex's collarbone. Hank's padding back towards them and Alex starts to feel cornered.

'I don't wanna talk about it,' he growls. 'Stop harshing my buzz.'

Hank rubs the damp washcloth over Alex's belly. 'Whatever it is, maybe if you told us -'

'Fuck off,' says Alex, but he knows he's not getting out of this one. Sometimes it feels like he doesn't get to keep anything private any more, living with a bunch of telepaths and geniuses, going to class, getting asked these questions that crack his chest open and don't close it up again after. He doesn't know, man. He doesn't know anything. He's a dumb fucking kid that blows shit up and people keep _asking him things -_

'Hey, hey, sssh,' says Hank, pulling him in closer. 'It's okay.'

Alex's eyes are stinging, wet. Shit, now they're never gonna let it go, are they? He rubs his hands across his face and rolls away from Hank, only to get caught by Sean. 

'We're _all_ just kids,' Sean says softly. 'But we got this. Right? We're a team. The Professor trusts us -'

'The Professor needs us,' Alex says. He knows he sounds bitter and he doesn't care. 'I just wish -' he starts, and then bites the inside of his cheek. 

'You just wish what?'

'Nothing,' Alex says. 'Just - nothing. Shut up and go to sleep.'

'Alex -' Sean starts, but Hank stops him. Alex can see them swap looks. He screws his eyes shut and refuses to care. Eventually they settle down on either side of him and first Hank, then Sean falls asleep. Hank breathes deep and slow and even, and Sean does too. Big lungs, both of them. Alex drops in and out of sleep, keeps getting lulled by the warmth and the rhythm and then getting jarred by it. 

In the end he wriggles out, pulls on his pyjamas, and wanders through the house until he finds himself in the TV room. He tucks up on the couch and turns the TV on, mutes it in case anyone else is having trouble sleeping, and stares through the flickering lights. He remembers doing this when he was little - sneaking out of bed to sit up and watch TV, or just watch cars go by through the front room window. His parents would catch him and put him back to bed. 

That was before the whole, y'know. Mutation thing. After that, he didn't have a TV, or a front window. Or any windows at all.

Or parents. They were pretty clear on that, the day he got sentenced.

'Can't sleep?' the Professor asks, rolling into the room. Dammit. Alex should have been quieter.

'What does it look like?' Alex mutters. 

The Professor snorts. 'Sometimes it's polite to ask the obvious question rather than assuming,' he says. 'Or people think I'm reading their minds.'

'Aren't you?'

'Not generally, no.'

Alex shifts so he can look at the Professor better. 'Why not? Doesn't it make everything easier?'

'Only if I don't care about the damage it does along the way. Why don't you just set fire to everything that bothers you?' he asks blandly, and Alex scowls.

'It's not the same thing.'

'It's remarkably close, sometimes.'

Alex wants to punch something. 'It's _not,'_ he growls. 'You can't just ... play with words, and make things be how you want them to.'

The Professor sighs. He looks so tired, Alex almost feels guilty for a moment before he remembers he didn't make the man get up and come give him some kind of troubled-teen pep-talk. 'I suppose not,' he says. 'I suppose that's a lesson we all have to learn, though. We have all this power, these abilities, and we still can't just make the world the way we want it to be.'

'Did you think we could?' Alex asks, squinting. 'We're just kids.' He's angry again, all of a sudden, because the Professor is tired and he's hurt and he should have just _left everything alone_. 'You dragged us all here and you keep calling it a school but you want us to fight a war and -'

'I don't want a war,' the Professor snaps. 'I want mutants to be safe. I want you to be safe, Alex. When I call this a school, I mean it. But we're living in a warzone whether we like it or not, and you have abilities that need to be trained above and beyond the capabilities of a normal school.'

They're glaring at each other, and the Professor looks actually mad for the first time Alex has ever seen - actually angry. Well, good.

'I don't want to,' Alex says, clamping down on the heat in his chest. 'I don't - this power? Has done nothing but ruin my life. I don't wanna be _trained_. I wanna get rid of it. I don't wanna be a walking weapon and I don't care about your stupid war, I don't wanna be an X-man. I don't wanna be a mutant.' He's yelling, he knows, but he doesn't know how to stop.

The Professor opens his mouth like he's gonna start shouting too, and then snaps it shut, breathes deep for a second. 'Then what do you want?' he asks. It pulls all the wind out of Alex's lungs.

'I wanna go back,' Alex whispers, voice crackling. 

'To jail?' 

'No. Back … before. Before I got my power. Before I … before I killed that guy. '

The Professor doesn't say anything for a long moment. Then he says, 'I'm not insensitive enough to tell you I know how it feels, to have done what you've done. But when I was twelve I realised that I was able to hear what others were thinking, and make them do things I wanted them to, and I'm sorry to say I … I did things too, that I now wish I hadn't.' He sighs. 'I think you'll find, Alex, that everyone who comes into a mutation comes into it too young to be entirely blamed for what they do. Not that that makes it better. Nothing makes it better. We just have to learn to live with it.'

'Maybe I can't,' Alex mutters.

'I think you have been,' the Professor says. 'I think you lived with it for years in jail, and I think you lived with it through Cuba, and here. You _are_ living with it, Alex. You're learning to control yourself and your power. You're making friends. You're helping people.'

Alex swipes his hands over his eyes again. He is not going to cry. It's late and he's tired and the burning pounding in his chest is fighting him. 

The Professor sighs, and pushes himself back out of the room, past Alex, between him and the TV. 'You should go back to bed,' he says quietly.

Alex almost says _you're not my Mom_. Almost. But he doesn't. The Professor leaves, and Alex watches the lightplay off the TV screen for a few more minutes. He will go back to bed. Eventually. Hank and Sean, they'll be pissed he left, maybe, but he's pretty sure they'll let him back in. He just needs a moment to _think_. 

But he can't think here, like this, all worked up.

So Alex walks. His footsteps echo too loud in the hallways and he doesn't care. He goes down, down through all the stupid staircases and corridors in this stupid fucking warren, until he gets to the bunker. As soon as the door locks behind him he's letting it out - all the fear and the anger, God, he's so fucking angry - comes out as plasma and it takes hardly any time before the whole damn place is on fire, which is stupid because Alex is immune to plasma but he still burns like anyone else does. 

So much for his mutation, huh? He just literally locked himself into a room and set it on fire.

Alex flops down in a back corner, out of reach of the flames, and just stares at the undeniable truth. It doesn't matter what he wants. He can't leave here. He can't go out in the world with all this inside him. Before, he was safe all locked up and there was nothing in there to make him this mad, no friction to start fires like this, but now … he's always gonna run across things that make him mad, he's not like Hank, he can't be Zen and calm when people get on his case, and he's not like Sean, he can't just laugh shit off. Things are always gonna get to him. 

He has to grow up. 

And he has to start now. He has to learn how not to start fires. 

***

The next morning it's like nothing's happened. No-one says a goddamn thing, and Alex twitches all through breakfast waiting for someone to call him out on the shit he pulled last night, but no-one does. They just eat, pass each other toast and jam and juice, and when he's done with his own breakfast the Professor pushes himself away from the table and asks them to come join him in his office when they're finished. 

'He seem okay to you?' Sean asks around a mouthful of banana. 'Can't tell if he's happy or freaked.'

'Could be either,' Hank says. 'He's still trying to get locations on the mutants he found using Cerebro for the CIA - maybe he's found someone else for us to go talk to.'

'Is that how you found me?' Ororo asks, buttering another bit of toast. 'What's a Cerebro?'

'Big machine,' Sean says lazily. 'Hooked the Professor up to it, meant he could find mutants with his brain or something.'

'It amplifies psychic ability,' Hanks corrects, flipping an exasperated look at Sean. 'It's just a big omnidirectional reflector, mostly.'

'Like I said, he found mutants with his brain.'

Alex lets them argue, and they let him be. Under the table, though, Hank's big foot is wedged up against his ankle, and Sean's knees are bumping Alex's because his freaking legs are too long, and Alex is kind of stupidly grateful. They leave him alone when he wants them to but they never really go away, and Alex spent long enough in solitary to know the difference. 

'C'mon,' says Hank after the mountain of toast is gone and Ororo and Sean are putting the lids back on all the different jars of spread. 'We should go see what the Professor wants.'

He and Sean forge on ahead, but Ororo hangs back with Alex, who's finishing the cleaning up just cos it needs doing and he doesn't really want to face the Professor in his office, on official business, just yet. 

'Whatever it is you're planning on doing, don't,' she says, leaning against the doorway.

'I'm not planning on doing anything,' Alex says, which is the truth. He's too twisted-up and turned around to be planning things. 

She looks at him with her big brown eyes like she thinks he's not being honest. 'I heard you last night. This is a good place,' she says. 'You and me, we need good places like this. Don't throw it away, Alex.'

'You don't know what I need,' Alex says, turning away to put his armful of jars back in the refrigerator. 'You don't have any goddamn idea.'

'Don't I?' she asks. 'You think I don't know out of control? You think I don't know about accidents, and people getting hurt, and running? You think I don't know about being trapped? For the first time since my mutation I have somewhere to sleep that only locks when _I_ want it to, I have people who ask me what _I_ want. I have people around me who know, just a little bit, what it feels like to be different.' She breathes hard through her nose and then says, 'I thought you were one of them.'

'I -'

'And if you understand me, then I think maybe I understand you.'

Alex stares at her. 'You're just a kid,' is all he can think to say and he doesn't even know why that should matter.

'But I'm not,' she says. 'I'm a mutant, the same as you. And I'm just saying, there are worse things to be. Worse places, too.'

Alex just keeps staring, blinks, and she shakes her head and heads towards the Professor's office. Alex stacks the breakfast plates in the sink, and then he has no more things to do to keep him from following the others, so he walks down the hallways again, like last night.

He passes the corridor that leads to the big showy front doors, and he could turn left and go down it and walk out of those doors. No-one would stop him. This isn't jail. But up ahead, if he keeps on the route he's taking now, he can hear Sean saying something that sounds like he thinks he's hilarious, and Hank's big deep laugh, and the Professor telling everyone to settle down. Alex has the weirdest feeling of déjà vu all of a sudden and can't place it until Ororo pipes up and Alex doesn't make out what she says but he does hear Sean say, 'sure thing, _Mom_.'

It's like something clicks in Alex's scorched chest, something like time-travel, back _before_ , and the things he's been burning for, well, maybe he's had them for a while now. 

Everyone kind of looks up at him when he walks into the Professor's office. He shrugs, kind of awkward, and says, 'So, what's the mission, then?'

_This whole thing stinks_ he thinks at the Professor privately. _Mutations, the war, all of it, but you're right. So I'm gonna live with it._

There's one seat free, between Hank and Sean, and Alex pushes over there to sit so he's just touching both of them. He meets the Professor's eyes, almost feeling cocky enough to dare him to ask, but kinda glad when he doesn't. 

'I've located another young person who needs our help,' the Professor says out loud.

In Alex's head he says, _you were already living with it. Are you ready to_ use _it?_

Alex feels his heart like an ember in his chest and nods.


End file.
